ON LOSING YOUR BALANCE

                                                                   A sermon by Rev. George R. Taylor

                                                                       First Presbyterian Church

                                                                                                                                                                   July 29, 2007

     Like so many of you, I really like this story about Martha and Mary found only in the gospel of Luke. In just four short verses so much is going on.  In fact, after unpacking the story and digging deep for its meaning, I not only found myself halfway to China, but also with two sermons to preach. Now I know that church is generally not the place where you are looking for a bargain, you know, two for the price of one, so the sermon, “Tradition Busters” will have to wait for the next time in the three year lectionary cycle when this text appears.

     On the surface of things this is such a simple little story.  Jesus stops by to visit with his good friends Martha and Mary.  From several other stories in the gospels we know that Jesus had a special relationship with these two sisters, and their brother Lazarus. So it is not surprising that he chose to find retreat and relaxation in the warmth of their friendship and the welcome of their home. Martha, ever the perfect hostess heads straight for the kitchen to prepare dinner. Do you think maybe Martha’s middle name was Stewart?  Martha immediately goes to the kitchen, rather than sitting and chatting for awhile,  for at least these two reasons. First, she loves Jesus and wants more than anything to extend a gracious welcome and the generous hospitality of a carefully prepared meal. Martha also understands and accepts the tradition and custom of her time.  Women have a clearly defined and narrowly prescribed place in first century, middle eastern, patriarchal culture. And as they say, that place is in the kitchen.   When together in public gatherings, men only speak with other men.  Only the men are allowed to be teachers, rabbis.  Only the men are permitted to be students and disciples.  So Mary, by leaving the dinner preparations to her sister, is not only shirking her duties as a homemaker, she is also defying custom by sitting at the feet of Jesus, assuming the posture of a disciple.

     It isn’t long before Martha, no longer able to contain her pique and anger toward Mary, when she suddenly enters the living room and lets loose with this complaint.  “Jesus, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” As they say, this was undoubtedly an “awkward” moment. Jesus didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this family squabble.  So, how would he respond? What would he say to Martha and Mary that would alleviate the tension and resolve the conflict?  If it were me, I’d have said something like, “Martha, how can I help? Come on Mary, let’s give your sister a hand.” Jesus, ever unpredictable and always full of surprise, does not address the symptom of Martha’s problem, but goes right to the heart of the matter, the root cause of the dis-ease.  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need for only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her.”

     Now even if we don’t know what in the heck Jesus means by this unusual comment, we easily catch on that he is siding with Mary and extending approval for her actions.  And by inference, he is taking issue with Martha’s outburst and discounting her concerns.  I’m sorry that Luke didn’t add just one more verse to this story, and tell us how Martha responded and what she said next.  That must have been interesting!

     Clearly Martha was worried and distracted.  And why was that? Well, she was doing all the work while Mary was having all the fun.  And furthermore, the forever upstart Mary was acting in defiance of her role as a women and her place in society.   I’m beginning to think that Rogers and Hammerstein patterned the role of Maria in the Sound of Music after Mary in the Gospel of Luke. How do you solve a problem like Mary, so full of life and bursting at the seams with energy she can’t stand to color in between the lines and live under the discipline of authority.

Martha’s emotional eruption, like so many of our angry outbursts, is probably about so much more than being left in the kitchen this one time. The precipitating incident is oftentimes simply the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and our anger is a result of an accumulation of slights and hurts and disappointments, resulting in resentment and self-pity.

     OK, after Martha got over what must have felt like a reprimand from Jesus, after her emotions calmed down and she could once again think straight, she must have asked herself, “What was this one thing needful that Jesus talked about?  What was this better part that Mary had chosen? And why could it not be taken from her?  Now here is where I begin to part company with many of the Biblical commentators.  Not that I disagree with them, but I believe there is more to it than meets their eyes.  It would initially appear and one could reasonably conclude that Jesus is saying that sitting at the feet of the master, being a disciple of Christ, listening to the word of God, is more important than physical nourishment. You know, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord” kind of thing. And this may very well be exactly what Jesus is talking about. Let’s however, look a little longer and just a bit further.

     Martha, I think, had every right to be confused and perplexed, upset and even angry.  After all, she was only doing what Jesus had taught over and over again.  Had Jesus not been listening to his own teaching? Have we not been listening to Carol’s sermons the past several weeks?  In Luke 10:1-9, read three weeks ago in worship, Jesus appoints the 70 and sends them, telling them to preach the good news and baptize in his name.  Go. Do. Serve. The harvest is great and the laborers are few. Go, go and work today. There is just too much work for the kingdom to be done to sit around and talk about love.  Don’t talk about love. Show me. And then two weeks ago Carol preached on Luke 10: 25-37 which you will remember is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who proved to be neighbor to the one who was beaten by robbers and left to die?  Of course.  The one who showed mercy. Not the others, you know, the priest and the Levite, who were so busy talking about mercy that they never really put their words into action.  We don’t have anybody around here like that, do we? And then Jesus said, “Go, and do likewise.” Martha was only doing what she had been told, and told not by her culture, not by her society, not by her mother, but told by the son of God, the very One who spoke with authority and was full of grace and truth.  Martha was practicing hospitality.  She was putting her faith into action.  Martha took her faith to work.  She was welcoming strangers and caring for those in need.  She thought she was doing the one most important thing and choosing the better part. In light of all of this, I am a bit surprised that Jesus was not more understanding and sympathetic with Martha, seeing things from her perspective and seeking to better appreciate her point of view.

     So what do you think? Does Jesus speak with forked tongue? Does he say one thing and then go applaud those who do another? On the one hand he says “go and do,” and on the other hand he says, “Come to think of it, sit and listen.”   Is Jesus inconsistent and self-contradictory? Of course not. Mary is not right and Martha is not wrong. They both have embraced a most important aspect of the larger truth. Mary has chosen, in this moment, to embrace the vertical dynamic of faith, of being still, and receiving God’s love, and contemplating the wisdom that comes from the Lord.  And Martha has chosen, at this moment, the horizontal dynamic of faith, of reaching out to her neighbor and expressing the love of God.   It is not that what Martha was doing was not right, it is only that she was not doing it in the right spirit.  As scriptures tell us, “God loves a cheerful giver” and Martha was anything but cheerful as she worked up one big hissy fit in the kitchen.  She reminds me of the older brother in another of Jesus’ better known parables, the parable of the Prodigal Son. The older son did everything he was told and was obedient to a fault, but he was so unhappy, so resentful, so angry. He, like Martha, was so worried and distracted, as we all can be in this age of anxiety in which we all live.

     Let’s pause for just a second and ask ourselves, what is it that worries and distracts us?  We who have committed our lives to serving God and doing the right thing, how do we work ourselves up into a lather because we don’t like things the way they are?  Maybe you too feel like you are doing all the work while others just sit around and have all the fun. Maybe you are worried and distracted because you fear the future of the church, not only our beloved congregation, but the larger church, which is shrinking in size and dwindling in effectiveness in so many places. Maybe you are distracted by the threats of global warming or terrorism and you find yourself increasingly frightened.  Maybe you are worried and distracted about your physical health or your financial security or a relationship which you just can’t make better.  In the face of all the worries and distractions, what is the one thing that we lack, what is the better portion which Mary has chosen which we need to embrace for ourselves?

     Mary, like Martha, has chosen another time honored and timeless truth. Martha has chosen to practice hospitality. Mary has chosen to keep the Sabbath.  For the Sabbath is more than just a day of the week.  The Sabbath is any time we set aside or any space we set ourselves into which enables our spirits to be nurtured, our faith to be fed, our relationship with God to be strengthened, and our wholeness to be restored. We know that God has created Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath. Sabbath keeping is so critically important to our spiritual health, because it is the means God chooses to sanctify our lives so that we will have a heart and a mind which are holy and divine, not profane and corrupt.  We are to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, not for God’s sake, but for our own. Otherwise, how will we hear the voice of God in the midst of the cacophony of our cultural and secular voices screaming for our attention and competing for our allegiance.  My friends, by now we know that “Victoria” does not have the “secret.”  For that matter, Victoria’s Secret is not even asking the right questions.

     So who was right and who was wrong. Both Martha and Mary were right. They each though, had hold of only one half of the whole truth.  Both were following their heart and acting on their very best instincts.  Neither was wrong.  Martha, however, so committed to the active life of service, had failed to refresh her spirit by keeping Sabbath with the Lord.  And this resulted in her growing anger and resentment, feeling more sorry for herself and less graciously and joyously concerned about others.  Just look at her language and the words she uses to express her concern.  “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” In her intention to serve others, Martha has gotten so entangled and wrapped up with this unholy trinity - me, myself and I.  Martha has lost her balance, and not taken the time to keep the Sabbath, so that her spirit might be refreshed and her heart made whole, so that she might become aware of that new thing that God was doing in her life.  And possibly Mary had lost her balance too, engrossed as she was in the contemplative life, committed to prayer and study, worship and fellowship, that she rarely got around to the equally important business of serving. Giusseppe Belli in his 19^th century sonnet gives us his idea of how Martha would have responded to Jesus when he tells her that Mary’s choice is more important.  “So says you, but I know better.  Listen, if I sat around on my salvation the way she does, who’d keep this house together?” And Martha’s got a point, doesn’t she? If everyone just sits around on their salvation, and only participates in the life of the church and God’s mission in the world when it’s convenient, or they feel like it, or don’t have anything more exciting to do, who is going to keep this house.  Who is going to sing in the choir?  Who is going to teach our children about God?  Who is going to maintain our historic buildings?  Who is going to head up our mission? Who is going to visit the sick and comfort the lonely?   To be sure, “man doesn’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”  But as someone once said, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but he doesn’t live very long without it.”  Faith without works, is dead. And the church without faithful workers, the church without cheerful givers, will die.

     The one thing needful that no person can live fully and healthily and abundantly without, is balance, where we balance the need for Sabbath rest with the challenge to go and serve, where we balance the contemplative with the active, our faith with our works, our need for spiritual renewal with our equally important need to be laborers in the vineyard, for the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.  Martha was in danger of losing her balance. How about you?

     Let me conclude this sermon with what Fred Craddock writes in his commentary on the gospel of Luke. “We must not cartoon the scene. Martha to her eyeballs in soapsuds, Mary pensively on the stool in the den, and Jesus giving scriptural warrant for letting the dishes pile up in the sink.  If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving altogether, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever.  There is time to go and do. There is time to listen and reflect. Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Good Samaritan or Mary, his answer would probably be, Yes.”